1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a stunner and, more particularly, to a multi-channel poultry stunner with current sharing feature.
2. Description of Related Art
Following the world trend, it has become an important issue to value and protect live animals. Animal protection laws have thus been regulated. Especially, in order to meet the requirement of humane slaughtering, it is necessary to put livestock or poultry under painless situations before slaughtering them. There are two humane stunning methods commonly used worldwide: carbon dioxide stunning and electrical stunning. Because carbon dioxide stunning has the disadvantages of large space required, long stunning time and high cost, its use is limited. Because electrical stunning has a low cost and easy operation, it has been widely used in humane slaughtering of livestock or poultry.
The stunning mechanism of electrical stunning used in humane slaughtering of livestock or poultry primarily utilize a current passing the central nervous system to suppress the transmission of neural signals so as to let them lose consciousness. In order to suppress the transmission of neural signals, the current needs to be very large. But a too large stunning current will deteriorate carcass quality. Therefore, a humane stunning system of high stability and good characteristic is very important during the slaughtering process of livestock or poultry. The power supply manner of the humane stunner can generally be divided into two types: utility grid power supply system and battery power supply system. The utility grid power supply system uses a silicon steel transformer to directly step up or step down the low frequency power grid voltage to a stunning voltage required for stunning livestock or poultry. On the other hand, the battery power supply system uses a power switch to cut the battery voltage into a square voltage waveform, and then uses a silicon steel transform of high step-up ratio to convert the battery voltage into a required stunning voltage. In the above conventional stunner, there is no voltage regulation, and it is easy to generate a too large stunning current to affect carcass quality. As shown in FIG. 1, for a stunner 10 adopting two electrodes, the applied stunning voltage VAB needs to be higher than the skin breakdown voltage of the poultry 12. This will cause a too large stunning current to affect carcass quality. Moreover, the silicon steel transformer used in the power supply system will result in a bulky stunner and low efficiency.
Accordingly, the present invention aims to propose a multi-channel stunner with current sharing feature to solve the above problems in the prior art. The proposed multi-channel stunner with current sharing feature is small and light, has high conversion efficiency, and can generate a stunning current with current-sharing feature to enhance carcass quality.